


Not Always Enough

by eriah211



Category: Primeval
Genre: Angst, Anomaly (Primeval), Blood and Violence, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Rescue Missions, Skyscrapers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28557684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eriah211/pseuds/eriah211
Summary: There is an anomaly alert at the top of a building and Lester is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Relationships: James Lester/Tom Ryan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Not Always Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to the awesome fredbassett for the beta.  
> Previously posted on Livejournal.

Even if Ryan hadn’t known the rest, Lester’s strained voice on the phone would have been enough to tell him that things were bad. Really bad.  
  
“Stay where you are,” Ryan said. “I’m on my way.”  
  
“Tom...” Lester said, the use of his first name making Ryan’s heart clench with fear. “Hurry up, please.”  
  
“We’re almost there,” he replied, knowing that he was lying.  
  
Ryan ended the call and briefly explained what he knew to the rest of the team as they walked into the building. Once inside the lobby, he immediately spotted the nervous-looking man with a name tag in his suit waiting for them by the front desk.  
  
“You are the-“  
  
“Yes, we’re here to deal with the problem,” Ryan stopped the poor man straight away. Time was an issue, and he didn’t want to waste it telling half-lies that would explain their job or the reason why they were there. “I understand you’re already evacuating the place?” he added, looking at the annoyed people who were leaving the building not very hastily.  
  
“Yes, as instructed. We told them it’s a precautionary measure, but there have been some other false alarms lately, so people seem to be taking their time,” the man replied apologetically. “They aren’t very pleased with the situation...”  
  
Surprise, surprise, Ryan thought. Actually, anomaly related incidents usually made people hurry up more, but the problem seemed to be contained on the top floor so the rest of the building was blissfully unaware of the danger.  
  
“We need to get to the conference room on the top floor as quickly as possible. What’s the fastest way?”  
  
“Well, the fire alarm has blocked the lifts to the top floors,” the man said, wringing his hands nervously. “The system does it automatically to prevent people on the affected floors from using them...”  
  
“But there isn’t a real fire, right?” Ryan replied. “Can’t you activate the lifts again?”  
  
“Well, of course, the system has already identified the situation as another false alarm, but those lifts will need a few minutes to go back to normal.”  
  
“How long?” Ryan asked curtly.  
  
“It’ll probably take from five to ten minutes…” The man hesitated as Ryan glared at him. “Maybe ten to 15 minutes until they’ll start working again.”  
  
Ryan huffed in annoyance and stared around the luxurious lobby looking for the stairs. He wasn’t looking forward to going up to the 50th floor of the One Canada Square building by foot, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to stay there waiting for the security system to reboot.  
  


***

  
_Staying inside the room had seemed like the most sensible idea to Lester, but of course things couldn’t be so simple, especially with the minister pacing nervously around the room. It had been bad enough to have to go to a meeting with that pompous arsehole after a long day at the ARC, but the situation had taken a turn for the worse quite quickly._  
  
_Lester had suspected something was off when he had been told the ‘informal meeting’ was going to be held in an office at One Square Canada in Canary Warf instead of the usual place at the Ministry, but he had simply got there in time, hoping to be wrong. As soon as he had walked into the room, though, Lester had seen his suspicions confirmed as he found the minister chatting comfortably with an attractive woman who was trying to sell the services of her company to the government._  
  
_The very married minister had not only seemed to be openly flirting with her, not bothered at all by a pair of bodyguards or Lester’s presence, it had also looked like he was simply tying up the last details of a deal that had already been agreed and Lester had realised the whole thing was just charade and a waste of his time._  
  
_Resigned to playing his part, Lester had been politely trying to pay attention to the woman, introduced to him as Miss Curtis, as she enthusiastically explained how they were going to provide the ARC with excellent new vehicles, when the fire alarm had gone off._  
  
_“No need to panic,” she had said with a calm smile. “It’s probably just a false alarm, it happens sometimes. The system will probably announce there is no danger in a minute.”_  
  
_One of the bodyguards had gone out of the room to check anyway and then things had escalated quite quickly._  
  
_A shriek in the hallway had made the other bodyguard get a hold of his gun and carefully open the door to have a quick look outside. Even though he had closed and blocked it with a chair almost immediately, it had been open long enough for Lester to see the shards of an anomaly on the far end of the hall and the torn body of the first bodyguard on the floor._  
  
_That had been when Lester had grabbed his phone and had called the ARC while thinking that the universe definitely hated him._  
  


***

  
  
Ryan had been ready to head for the stairs when the nervous man finally shared some good news.  
  
“The lifts to the top floors aren’t working yet, but these others are,” he told them as he walked to the other side of the lobby and pointed at another set of lift doors. “They don’t go up to the 50th floor, but they go straight to the 28th and they reach up to the 39th. You can get there in a few minutes and then it would be just a few floors by the stairs.”  
  
“Much better option,” Ryan muttered to himself as he pressed the lift button.  
  
“All right, re-start the lifts to the top floors and keep evacuating the building,” he added looking at the man. “One of my men is going to stay here to help you with that while the backup arrives, but we’ll go ahead and take control of the situation.”  
  
He looked pointedly at Finn and the young soldier simply nodded. The other team wasn’t supposed to be too far away, but with London’s traffic there was no way to be sure when they were going to get there.  
  
As the doors of the lift opened, Ryan heard the security system repeating its warning through the loudspeakers in the lobby.

  
“Attention please, attention please. As a precaution, please leave the building immediately by the nearest exit.”

  
Without any further words, Ryan and the rest of the team got in and he pushed the button to the 39th floor.  
  


***

  
  
_Behind the blocked door, Lester listened carefully, but didn’t hear a thing. Not a growl, not a yell for help._  
  
_“Is there anybody else working on this floor, Miss Curtis?” Lester asked wondering if there were other people in danger nearby._  
  
_“No, no, the other offices are empty,” she replied immediately. “We were the only ones on the 50 th but it was just me today for this meeting...”_  
  
_So she had planned a very private meeting and had sent everybody home, Lester thought. At least one thing had played in their favour that day._  
  
_“The bodyguard...” Miss Curtis added worriedly. ”He probably needs our help, we can’t leave him outside...”_  
  
_“I assure you he’s beyond help, Miss,” the other bodyguard replied, sadly._  
  
_Lester could only agree with that statement. His brief look at the hall had been enough to notice the impossible angle of the man’s head and the pool of blood on the floor._  
  
_“My team already knows there is a... situation in the building and they are on their way,” Lester said, trying to keep them calm. ”We just have to wait here and try not to make much noise.”_  
  
_The loud fire alarm had probably disoriented the creature that was in the building, but since that had already stopped, their best chance was to wait inside as quietly as possible until backup arrived._  
  
_But of course the minister had other plans._  
  
_“We have to get out of here! I’m not waiting on the top floor of a skyscraper while somebody is right there trying to kill me,” he replied petulantly. “How stupid do you think I am?”_  
  
_Lester had to clench his jaw to stop himself from answering that question honestly. Somehow the man had deduced that the whole thing was a cunning assassination attempt against him and wanted to get out of the building immediately. The fact that going out there, where supposedly the assassins were waiting for him, was a bad idea seemed to elude him completely._  
  
_“There is no smoke or any sign of fire anywhere, it’s safe to wait here,_ _” Lester finally replied, calmly. “It’s too dangerous to try to go out on our own, we have to stay here until help arrives.”_  
  
_Unfortunately, as if convincing that arsehole wasn’t difficult enough as it was, the fire alert system chose that moment to play its message._

  
_“Attention please, attention please. As a precaution, please leave the building immediately by the nearest exit.”_

  
_The minister smiled smugly at Lester, but before he could insist on leaving the office, Miss Curtis intervened._  
  
_“We could go to another room,” the woman suggested. “Better equipped and with more sturdy doors, we would be safer there.”_  
  
_Lester sighed as he watched the moron’s smile broaden at her words._  
  


***

  
  
In a couple of minutes, they reached the 28th floor and Ryan felt optimistic for the first time since the moment he’d got the news of the mess, but of course, things couldn’t be that easy.  
  
Some people were still evacuating the place and even though they had probably been encouraged to use the stairs to leave the building despite not being a fire, many couldn’t follow the advice or were simply ignoring it, and the lift started stopping on every fucking floor.  
  
Each time, they got ready as the doors opened, just in case there was a nasty surprise on the other side, but all they had to face was a bunch of shocked people who weren’t expecting soldiers in full gear inside the lift.  
  
Almost there, he told himself, trying to keep calm. They were going to reach Lester soon and they were going to get him out of there safely.  
  


***

  
  
_The minister agreed to stay in the building, but he insisted they should go to the supposedly safer room._  
  
_Lester tried to make him see reason, but none of his warnings or the weak complaints of the surviving bodyguard seemed to have any effect._  
  
_“It’s just two doors to the left,” Miss Curtis said to the minister as she touched his arm lightly. “It’ll take less than a minute and I have the keys to lock us inside.”_  
  
_Lester glared at her, not bothering on hiding his anger, but the infuriating woman had turned her back and was ignoring him completely while she focussed on getting the minister’s whole attention._  
  
_“Let’s go then,” the minister said firmly._  
  
_Lester exchanged a look with the bodyguard, but he knew the battle was lost. Unless he wanted to stay behind alone, it looked like he was going to have to follow them out of the room._  
  


***

  
  
They finally reached the 39th floor and Ryan wasted no time finding the stairs. Just eleven floors, he thought, almost there.  
  
As they rushed up the stairs, they crossed paths with a few employees who were still evacuating the offices of the top floors. Some middle-aged men holding suitcases, a few women wearing shoes that hadn’t been designed for too much walking. Ryan also noticed a young woman who for some reason was protectively hugging a peace lily plant as she walked down the stairs.  
  
People seemed surprised to see soldiers in the building, but since nobody was in need of help, the soldiers simply kept going, trying to reach the top floor as fast as possible.  
  
As they climbed the stairs, the same message kept echoing on every floor:

  
_“Attention please, attention please. As a precaution, please leave the building immediately ...”_

  
  


***

  
  
_The walk to the other room was in fact short, but the sound of the keys dangling from the woman’s hand made Lester shiver as he wondered why such a modern building had an old-fashion locking system instead of the usual, more silent, digital key-cards._  
  
_As he feared, the sound echoed freely in the silence of the empty hall and by the time the woman was finally turning the key in the lock, Lester heard a scratching sound and a disturbingly familiar snarl._  
  
_He wasn’t the only one who heard it, though. Lester saw the bodyguard was already aiming his gun at the creature. But clinging from the top of a corner of the hallway, a future predator had already located them and their only chance was to get inside the room immediately or they were doomed._  
  
_A loud curse by his side told Lester that the minister had also seen the creature. Lester turned around in time to see the minister pushing the door open himself and rushing into the room, followed immediately by Miss Curtis._  
  
_The bodyguard started shooting at the future predator, but Lester knew the small gun wasn’t going to be enough._  
  
_“Get inside now!” Lester shouted._  
  
_And the man was smart enough to follow his order, but they had barely had time to close the door behind them when the creature bumped against it. The double door was thick and robust, but they needed to block it somehow or they weren’t going to survive until the team arrived._  
  


***

  
  
When he finally reached the door to the 50th floor, Ryan took a moment to send a warning look at his team before opening it and getting inside.  
  
They all knew they were going to have to face a tough adversary, but aside from Ryan and Finn, none of the other soldiers on the team that day had actually faced a future predator before. All of them had been briefed and warned the moment they joined the ARC team, though, and Ryan wanted to think they would be ready.  
  
As they started walking carefully along the corridor, Ryan heard that the alarm system message had changed.

  
“All clear. All clear. No further action required. All clear. No further action required”

  
A quick glance at the lifts confirmed his suspicions. They seemed to be operative once again, if the lights on the panels were of any indication. He cursed under his breath. Well, at least they would be ready to get the second team there much faster, he thought.  
  
Moving slowly forward, they soon spotted the first casualty. The battered body of a man was in the middle of the hallway, his useless gun lying beside him. Not far away from the body Ryan noticed a door that somebody had left open carelessly when the people on that floor had evacuated the place or run away from something worse than a fire.  
  
That couldn’t be the room Lester was hiding in, since they were supposed to be barricaded inside waiting for help, Ryan thought, but it couldn’t be far away. Ryan wasn’t sure exactly where the conference room was located, but he had a hunch they weren’t going to have much problem finding the correct place.  
  
Just as they were about to keep moving, Ryan heard the tone of an incoming call through his headset and halted, fervently hoping this time he would get good news.  
  


***

  
  
_The bumps on the door had stopped, but Lester wasn’t going to be fooled, he knew the future predator wouldn’t have given up that easily._  
  
_While the others finished setting a heavy wooden chest of drawers against the door, Lester looked around the place, seeing a sparsely decorated conference room. There were only some chairs, a big round table and huge screen on the righthand wall. There were no places to hide and certainly no other way out._  
  
_Things weren’t looking good and the team needed to know what they were against before they got there so he reached for his phone and this time he called Ryan direct._  
  
_As he walked away from the others, waiting for him to answer, Lester heard the alert system repeating its message:_

  
_“Attention please, attention please. As a precaution, please leave the building immediately ...”_

  
_“Lester?” Ryan’s voice sent a wave of relief through Lester’s body._  
  
_“Ryan, we’re in a conference room on the 50 th,” Lester told him without wasting a second. “We’ve barricaded ourselves inside and the door seems strong enough to hold for a while, but...” he paused, not wanting to put into words his worst fear. “Ryan, there is at least one future predator here,” Lester finally added, lowering his voice. “You have to be very careful.”_  
  
_“Stay where you are,” Ryan said, worry clear in his tone. “I’m on my way.”_  
  
_“Tom...” Lester hesitated. He felt the need to add something, but the words died on his tongue._  
  
_They hadn’t been together for that long, he thought. In fact, they were keeping their relationship a secret from everybody, and Lester still didn’t know if that was for his benefit or Ryan’s. Maybe it was not the time or the place._  
  
_“Hurry up, please,” Lester simply added, feeling like a coward._  
  
_“We’re almost there,” Ryan said before ending the call._  
  
_Lester clutched his phone against his chest, wondering how long they could resist inside the room. Then he heard a scratching noise on the ceiling and he wondered if he had missed his chance to say goodbye._  
  


***

  
  
The voice Ryan heard wasn’t Lester’s, but at least it was good news.  
  
“We’ve just arrived, Ryan,” Stephen said, straight to the point. “Finn told us about the future predators. How is the situation?”  
  
“We’ve started searching the floor, but there’s still no sign of any predator... or Lester,” Ryan replied, his voice barely a whisper.  
  
“Connor says the ADD shows the anomalies have already closed, but be very careful,” Stephen added. “We’re on our way, we’ll be there in a few minutes.”  
  
Anomalies plural, Ryan noted as the call ended. Not relevant now if they are already closed, he thought focussing on the task at hand.  
  
They started moving forward carefully, stun grenades ready in case of need, but Ryan couldn’t see any sign of any predator nearby. Not much further along the hall, though, the door of one of the offices caught his attention.  
  
The wooden double door was closed, but the marks on its surface showed that something with sharp claws had tried to get them to open. Fortunately, the sturdy door had resisted, if only barely, which meant that the people inside could still be safe.  
  
That had to be the conference room Lester had talked about, Ryan thought, hope raising again as they got closer.  
  
“Lester,” Ryan called quietly when they reached the door.  
  
There was no answer, but Ryan didn’t want to risk it by shouting when they still hadn’t cleared the whole area. He signalled his men to cover him and turned around to try to get the door open. If a future predator hadn’t managed to do it by force, he wasn’t going to make it either, so he focussed on the lock.  
  
It was a classic door lock, not especially difficult to pick, he realised immediately. It seemed like luck was finally on their side again. Using the knowledge that Quinn had happily shared with the whole team and a small Swiss knife, it didn’t take Ryan long to hear a satisfactory click that meant his efforts had been successful.  
  
A little push and the door opened slightly, but it soon bumped into something that had been blocking it from the inside. With some effort, Ryan managed to finally open the door enough to let him through and after a short nod to the soldiers, he walked into the room, raising his gun.  
  
The first thing he noticed was the torn body by the door, then the hole on the ceiling. The furniture had been tossed around, the big conference table, a set of expensive looking chairs... even the wooden chest somebody had clearly used to block the door was lying down next to it.  
  
The other soldiers walked in after him and they moved carefully around the room, but their search was brief. There hadn’t been any place to hide. Once the creature had burst through the ceiling, they hadn’t stood a chance.  
  
Ryan took a closer look at the body on the floor. The man was too tall and solidly built to be Lester or the minister, but there were no other bodies in the room so where was everybody? What had happened to them?  
  
Ryan looked around in despair and wondered if he was ever going to see Lester alive again.

END

**Author's Note:**

> This is the end of this fic, but there is a sequel on the way (although it takes me ages to write anything nowadays so not sure when it will be posted).  
> Sorry if there isn't a more positive ending, but the first idea was to end the fic with Ryan getting inside the conference room to find four bodies and realising he was too late so... it could have been worse ;P


End file.
